Bondage to Freedom (2)

Now, where the Spirit of Christ is, there is liberty and freedom from that bondage that we are in by nature and which is strengthened by a wicked course of life. For though we are all born slaves by nature, by a wicked course of life we put ourselves into bonds and entangle ourselves. So many sins and so many repetitions of sin, so many cords—the longer a man lives the greater slave he is. Now when the Spirit of Christ comes, it frees us from all, from both natural and habitual slavery. This liberty is wrought by Christ and applied by the Spirit. What Christ works he makes ours by his Spirit, who takes all from Christ. Yet both have their efficacy—Christ as the meritorious cause, and the Spirit as the applying cause. When Christ and we are one, his sufferings are ours, and his victory is ours, all is ours. Then the Spirit works in us love and other graces. The dominion of sin is broken more and more, and we are set at liberty by the Spirit.
Freedom does not originate with the Spirit, but the grand redeemer is Christ. By paying the price to divine justice, he redeems us, and he alone. We are in bondage to the wrath of God under his justice, and so justice must be satisfied before we can be free. We are freed by a strong hand from bondage to Satan, God's executioner and jailer. Christ frees us by his Holy Spirit, working such graces in us as to make us see the loathsomeness of that bondage, and likewise working grace in us to be in love with that better condition which the Spirit discloses to us. The Spirit brings us out of bondage by revelation and by power. All whom Christ frees by paying the price for their redemption, he perfects that freedom little by little, till he brings them to a glorious freedom in heaven.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Glorious Freedom, pp. 29-31 [34-35]
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